Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Yoani Sanchez, the main Yankee mercenary inside Cuba, said police detained her husband Reinaldo Escobar, who is also known by the sobriquet of Triple Feo.

Escobar is editor-in-chief of the "dissident" news and opinion website 14ymedio.com.
All are paid with Yankee funds brought in to the island in diplomatic pouches which come from Miami and Washington D.C.

In exercise of my rights under the Federal Freedom Of
Information Act (FOIA), I am requesting that you send to me all the important
records, unclassified or classified, in regard to the infamous CIA activities
named “Operation Peter Pan” which your agency initiated
during the early years of the 1960's.

Such CIA activities/operation spread the falsehood that the
the Cuban Revolutionary Government, which came to power on January First, 1969,
was going to round-up Cuban children and send them to the then existing Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Myself and my parents were the victims of your agency's evil
and deceitful plans.

If you refuse and/or ignore my request, I will spend all the
meager funds that I have to take you to the appropriate U.S. Federal Court to
exercise my FOIA rights.

Respectfully,

Jorge R. Gonzalez

Publisher/Editor of Cuba Journal

[Redacted]

[Redacted]

[Redacted], Florida

Sent by USPS first class certified mail, return receipt
requested, on the date of this letter.

Monday, December 29, 2014

Greece faces early election after Prime Minister loses vote on president

By Renee Maltezou and Lefteris Papadimas4 minutes ago

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece heads to an early general election [on January 25] after parliament rejected Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's nominee for
president on Monday, throwing the country into a new period of political
turmoil just as it emerges from economic crisis.

If Syriza is elected, it would be the first time an anti-bailout party
determined to overturn the austerity approach prescribed since the start
of the euro zone crisis comes to power in Europe.

A large majority of Americans support establishing diplomatic ties with Cuba, and even larger -- and growing -- majorities support an end to trade and travel bans to the country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The national survey finds little erosion in public support after President Obama announced sweeping changes in U.S.-Cuba policy, despite his weak approval ratings nationally. Sixty-four percent support establishing ties with Cuba, similar to 66 percent in a 2009 pollasking whether the United States should do so.

Monday, December 22, 2014

In Central Florida, two prominent American churches, and
their property management company, are blocking the Internet signal of Cuba's Granmadailynewspaper.

The building is owned by the Episcopal and Catholic churches
and is managed by a company named SPM. They have two computers in the building
library, with Internet connection, for the use of all the building residents.

The IT department of SPM alleges that Granma is
spreading “malware” from their website in Havana.

I talked to the #1 person (the building manager) and the #2
person (the service coordinator) of SPM, 45 days ago. Nothing has been done
since then. I told the #2 person that what she was telling me was a lot of BS.
It would be very stupid for Granma to spread malware. I do not
believe they are doing it. #2 did not offer any proof about of what she was
saying.

Friday, December 19, 2014

The cartoon was published by the right-wingers @ Babalu Blog in Miami. They are furious! Maybe Obama is doing what is correct after 54 years of a failed Cuba policy. The Cuba embargo is now a stinking corpse! The U.S. Congress should bury it fast!

Cartoon caption translation: "Democrats for Communism, we will be like Che!"

The Babalusians are to the right of Nazis. Message to them: "Take two aspirins and call your shrink at noon!"

The first thing that you encounter when you visit Babalu or CPUSA websites is a "donate" button. They both are 100% about MONEY!

Cuban authorities arrested him and threw him in prison for nearly two decades.

He has now been released from prison and flown out of Cuba as part of the
swap for three Cuban anti-terrorism fighters imprisoned in the United States that
President Obama announced on Wednesday. (New York Times)

Fox host: ‘Without question, Elizabeth Warren is the devil’ and Wall Street will defeat her

Fox Business host Melissa Francis predicted this week that Wall Street
would devote their resources to defeating Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
if she decided to run for president because bankers and traders believed
that she was “actually the devil.” (Raw Story)

Raúl Castro anuncia victoria para Cuba: Se abren relaciones con EEUU

Cuban President Raul Castro announces the reset of Cuba-U.S. relations

Photo: teleSUR

Published 17 December 2014 (3 hours 2 minutes ago)

On his special address, the Cuban head of state Raul Castro said relations between governments will be relaunched.

Cuban President Raul Castro gave a speech Wednesday to say that relations between both governments will be reset.

“We have agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations, but this does not mean that the main issue has been resolved, the blockade that generates economic losses and humanitarian problems in our country must stop,” he said.

In his speech he said, “Cubans have courageously shown that, despite the adversities, the Cuban people is committed to the Revolution,” he said.

“We should take mutual steps to advance towards the normalization of the relationship between both countries” he said.

He called on President Obama to lift the half-century blockade saying, “The President could modify its implementation (of the blockade) by using his executive powers,” and in a sign of the improved relations added, “We will continue discussing these issues in the future.”

​Negotiations between Cuba and the United States began 18 months ago, with the encouragement of Pope Francis. The secret talks were hosted in Canada, and a final meeting took place in the Vatican.

During the negotiations, both U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro spoke over the phone and agreed to restart relations between both countries.

Earlier on Wednesday, Cuba released US spy Alan Gross and the United States freed the Cuban Five, held in US prisons since 1998.

Cuba arrested Gross, now 65, on Dec. 3, 2009, and later convicted the USAID subcontractor to 15 years in prison for trying to establish clandestine internet service. Gross was subcontracted by private firm Development Alternatives, Inc., which was subcontracted by USAID to provide "humanitarian assistance.”

USAID has long tried to infiltrate Cuba via various programs in order to affect soft change on the island. The United States has spent US$264 million over the last 18 years, in successive efforts to oust the Cuban government.

The U.S. more overt economic blockade on Cuba, harshly criticized by the international community for many years, has been in situ since the early days of the Cold War, when U.S. anti-communist hysteria was at its peak.

There has been growing pressure from within the United States to end the blockade. Ahead of the speech, both Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democrat Senator Richard Durbin both announced, through separate statements, that both countries could normalize trade relations.

I just finished listening on the TV to the statement by President Barack Obama on U.S.-Cuba relations. They days of the embargo are numbered. The USA will benefit and Cuba will benefit. We are neighbors, and we have to learn to live with each other.

The big losers will be the Hate Brigades of the Miami extremists.

When Obama's statement is placed on You Tube, I will put in Cuba Journal. I will do the same with the statement by Cuban President, Raul Castro.

A history-making change to a Cold War conflict

In a move to wipe away one of
the Cold War's last vestiges, President Barack Obama will launch
negotiations with Cuba on resuming full diplomatic relations five
decades after they broke off, a U.S. official told Yahoo News on
Wednesday. Obama's decision comes after Cuba freed U.S. aid contractor
Alan Gross.

The official, who
did not set a timetable for when embassies might open in Washington and
Havana, said Obama would announce his plans in a midday speech at the
White House. The president was reportedly also set to announce changes
to U.S. economic sanctions imposed on Cuba at the height of the Cold War
follwing Fidel Castro's revolution, and to order a review of Cuba's
place on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The
scope of the policy shift was a surprise, but the Obama Administration
had previewed the potential change when longtime Obama foreign policy
aide Antony Blinken testified in a Senate hearing in November on his confirmation to the number-two job at the State Department. Blinken was confirmed Tuesday.

Gross
had been sentenced in 2011 to 15 years in prison in connection with an
effort to create a communications network outside Cuban government
control. Cuba freed him on humanitarian grounds as part of a broader
deal that saw each side free intelligence assets.

The
United States and Cuba have had no embassies -- or ambassadors -- since
1961. Each side has an "interests section" housed in another country's
embassy.

WASHINGTON
(AP) — The United States and Cuba will start talks on normalizing full
diplomatic relations, marking the most significant shift in U.S. policy
toward the communist island in decades, American officials said
Wednesday. The announcement comes amid a series of new
confidence-building measures between the longtime foes, including the
release of American Alan Gross and the freeing of three Cubans jailed in
the U.S.

President Barack Obama was to announce the policy changes from the White House at noon Wednesday.
_

Cuba has exchanged American citizen Alan Gross for three Cubans
jailed in the United States. The prisoner swap is set to be the first
step in a major overhaul of US-Cuba relations.

US officials said Gross was transported on a government plane
Wednesday morning after being released on humanitarian grounds,
which followed a request from the White House. Gross, who had
been imprisoned for five years, was viewed as a stumbling block
towards improving relations between Havana and Washington.

US President Barack Obama is scheduled make a statement 1700 GMT
on Cuba, the White House said, where he is expected to announce a
shift in its Cuban policy. Cuban President Raul Castro, in turn,
is scheduled to address his nation at the same time.

According to US officials, Washington will begin talks on
normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba and opening an embassy
in the country, AP reports.

Gross was handed over for three Cubans who were part of the
so-called ‘Cuban Five.’ The group was allegedly sent by former
Cuban President Fidel Castro to carry out espionage in South
Florida. The men, who were convicted by a court in Miami in 2001
on charges including conspiracy and failure to register as
foreign agents, are widely lauded back home.

The United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba over 50
years ago due to the Castro's socialist reforms and increased
cooperation with the Soviet Union.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

The former Vatican ambassador to the Dominican Republic, accused of having sexually abused boys in Santo Domingo, has been defrocked by a Vatican tribunal, Catholic Church officials here said Friday.

Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski of Poland was convicted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — the church’s doctrinal watchdog — and ordered ejected from the Roman Catholic Church. As a Vatican citizen, he could face trial by the Vatican’s criminal court and be sentenced to prison.

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